Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / Inside the Hilton Metropole: 50 Years of Big-Stage Events

Transcript

Inside the Hilton Metropole: 50 Years of Big-Stage Events · Event Industry News Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everybody and welcome to the Event Industry News podcast with me, James Dixon, wishing
• 0:10
  you all a very good morning, afternoon or evening, whenever or wherever you tune into
• 0:15
  today's podcast from.
• 0:17
  And in terms of where you're tuning into today's podcast from, it's more a case of where we
• 0:21
  are recording today's podcast from.
• 0:23
  I am in the beautiful surroundings of the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, adjacent of course
• 0:29
  to the NEC in the heart of England, and we've been afforded this brilliant opportunity today
• 0:36
  to come down and record some episodes of the podcast to celebrate the 50th birthday, 50th
• 0:41
  anniversary of this, I suppose, institution of the UK events industry.
• 0:47
  We're going to be recording three episodes of the podcast here today, talking to various
• 0:52
  people who are involved in the running and the operation of the events here, finding
• 0:56
  out a little bit about the history of the venue if you're not familiar with it, and
• 1:00
  I think most people in the events industry will be.
• 1:02
  So it's a huge thank you to all the people sort of behind the scenes here for setting
• 1:09
  up and giving us an invite here at Event Industry News to come down and record some of the podcasts
• 1:14
  today.
• 1:15
  Kicking things off, I'm delighted to say that I am joined in this sort of sumptuous booth,
• 1:19
  I feel like relaxing, yes, by Simon Jelly.
• 1:23
  Simon is from ProTech, fully on brand today, and Simon is a national sales and account
• 1:31
  manager for ProTech, and is very much based, well, first of all, welcome to the podcast,
• 1:36
  Simon.
• 1:37
  Thank you, James.
• 1:38
  Glad to be here.
• 1:39
  And you are based here, have a base here, what's the sort of the setup with ProTech,
• 1:44
  first of all?
• 1:45
  Okay, yes, well, ProTech has a big warehouse and headquarters on site at the NEC, so literally
• 1:51
  a stone's throw from here.
• 1:53
  It's obviously very handy for supporting all the events we do in the building.
• 1:56
  I personally am the account manager for the hotels, he's one of my biggest clients, and
• 2:01
  myself and my colleague David have an office in the hotel here with the sales team in the
• 2:08
  hotel staff offices.
• 2:10
  And for anybody who's not been to this venue before, the first thing I remember coming
• 2:15
  here for the first time, you don't realise sort of how big a place it is physically as
• 2:19
  a building.
• 2:20
  This is, it's a big old space, isn't it?
• 2:22
  It is, she is a big old beast, the Met, yeah, and I think as you said in your intro, most
• 2:26
  people in the events industry know her, everyone's been here at some time or another for an event.
• 2:31
  And yes, the Birmingham Met is very well known.
• 2:33
  It is a big hotel, and there are a lot of spaces, which obviously from an event production
• 2:37
  point of view, is great, you've got a lot of space to work with, there's a lot you can
• 2:41
  do, from smaller events up to larger events, there's huge flexibility, the way the rooms
• 2:45
  can join together gives us great flow sometimes.
• 2:48
  So that's fabulous, but I've worked here personally since 2009, so the more you're here, the less
• 2:56
  big it seems, if that makes sense, it doesn't seem huge to me now, even though it is a big
• 3:02
  building.
• 3:03
  Yeah, yeah, and from a technical production point of view, you know, you're a partner,
• 3:06
  but I bet the amount of time that you physically spend in here, you probably know every nook
• 3:10
  and cranny, you know, where every plug socket is, wherever.
• 3:14
  Well, mostly, you'd like to think that, and yes, we do, obviously, we have a huge working
• 3:18
  knowledge of the venue, but there are still surprises, there's still things you find even
• 3:22
  after all this, you go, I didn't know that was there, which is part of the charm of the
• 3:27
  old place, I think.
• 3:28
  And I suppose when we look at the technical production aspect of it, which is what you
• 3:33
  deal with and you support clients here week in, week out, for many, many years on that,
• 3:38
  it's important to stress, I suppose, first of all, that for those who haven't been to
• 3:41
  this venue, just, I suppose, what the opportunities are from a technical production point of view,
• 3:48
  because a lot of hotels, they'll have a function suite or some sort of big suite, this is very
• 3:54
  unique as a hotel space in terms of that big main room they've got, as well as all the
• 3:58
  other spaces.
• 3:59
  Yeah, that's right, James, you can kind of parcel the hotel off and make it into sort
• 4:03
  of multiple venues, even because of the size of it.
• 4:06
  So there are three really large, you were saying the hotel will have a main event suite,
• 4:10
  this has three.
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  So with the monarch suite, which is at the far end of the hotel, and can become kind
• 4:15
  of self-contained.
• 4:16
  So that has its own foyer, its own entrance, and that's a huge space, you know, 2000 people
• 4:21
  theatre style, it's a big old beast, you can do some fantastic production in there, there's
• 4:26
  rigging across the whole of the ceiling, unistruct, there's an amazing loading where it's almost
• 4:31
  like a secret door, the whole wall kind of opens out, and there's a cargo bay loading
• 4:36
  door, you can run your truck straight up to the, and straight into the room, which is
• 4:41
  fantastic from a production point of view, that's what's happening.
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  It's an arena load in, isn't it?
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  Yeah, no lifts, no stairs, fantastic, so straight on in, like you say, arena load in.
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  So the monarch suite, brilliant, but then also you've got the king suite and the palace
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  suite, which are further down into the main body of the hotel.
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  Again they have great access, the king suite has similar to the monarch, another load in
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  straight off the road, with a straight in loading bay, the palace is just through a
• 5:05
  goods access, but again, no lifts, no stairs, and both those rooms are also, in any other
• 5:10
  venue would be considered a large space, so yeah, you can, we could have a dinner for
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  1000 in the monarch, a dinner for 400 in the kings, and a dinner for 700 in the palace
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  all going on at the same time.
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  How, how, when you've got a venue like this, and I suppose being in a fortunate position
• 5:29
  where you're, you know, you're the preferred supplier here, and you're very much on site,
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  from a staffing point of view, how does that work?
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  Do you work with a, you know, a lot of freelance network, or because of the, the amount of
• 5:41
  business that must be coming through the hotel event wise, is there a case where you've got
• 5:45
  sort of almost like a permanent base of technicians that are here and operating here?
• 5:50
  Yeah, it's a bit of both, James, it's a good question.
• 5:53
  Obviously the way the events industry works is very much peaks and troughs, so obviously
• 5:57
  school holiday times tend to be a bit quieter on the corporate side, because people aren't
• 6:01
  going to organise their big sales conference where everyone's, you know, in my bear or
• 6:05
  off with the kids.
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  So yeah, we tend to get peaks during spring and autumn, mainly, so those are really busy
• 6:11
  times, so early in winter as well, in fact it used to be you'd get the more downtime
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  than you do, the downtime is shrinking every year, which is great, but yeah.
• 6:21
  You can't carry enough stuff to cover.
• 6:23
  Of course, yeah.
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  So freelancers are a big part of what we do, we have a very trusted team of freelancers,
• 6:32
  so everyone's vetted and checked to have the appropriate insurances, and most of them are
• 6:37
  guys we've known for years, to be honest, so we know they're good guys, they're people
• 6:40
  who've either worked with us before, or we've worked with for many years, and we know they're
• 6:44
  good, we know they're qualified, they get the job done.
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  And then we have our own team of technicians, so there are two of us based here, client
• 6:51
  side, dealing with the hotel and the hotel's clients and the events here, myself and my
• 6:56
  colleague David Morgan, and then we have a team of technicians who are in the warehouse
• 7:00
  over at the NEC, who we use to support the events, either as show techs, or maybe running
• 7:05
  smaller things that only need a couple of guys to look after a smaller meeting for 80
• 7:10
  people, so that kind of thing.
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  So it's a blend.
• 7:12
  Yeah, and having that, going back to sort of your role in working with the venue and
• 7:18
  with the team here at Hilton, I guess in that respect, that's allowing you the opportunity
• 7:27
  to really work with clients alongside the hotel at an earlier stage of the whole process,
• 7:32
  isn't it?
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  That's one benefit of having, I guess, an onsite preferred partner, is that you're understanding
• 7:39
  not just of the technical aspects, but also of the other hotel operations and how that
• 7:43
  could affect events.
• 7:45
  Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
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  And I think all production companies, anyone working in AV or technical production would
• 7:51
  say the earlier you get us involved in the process, the better.
• 7:54
  Quite often, as you say, you're brought in later, the venue's already decided, the room's
• 7:58
  already decided, and you're given a bit of a fate to come clear.
• 8:01
  We want to do this in here, and you're like, okay, how am I going to make that work?
• 8:04
  And then you're working around trying to figure out a solution.
• 8:08
  Because we're here onsite and we're working so closely with the hotel, we can be involved
• 8:11
  in that initial conversation alongside the hotel and be helping the client make the right
• 8:16
  choice about which space is going to work best for them, how that might be orientated,
• 8:20
  how it might be set up.
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  And because, like you say, we know how that hotel works, they know how we work, it's a
• 8:26
  seamless service, and that can provide a great solution for the client.
• 8:30
  I said at the top that we are here celebrating the 50th anniversary of the hotel, and I looked
• 8:37
  at some photos.
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  I did a bit of Googling and looked at photos.
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  In terms of the exterior, the facade, if you will, the fundamentals of the building haven't
• 8:48
  changed dramatically as such, but I would say that that's probably the complete polar
• 8:55
  opposite when it comes to the internals and the upgrades.
• 8:59
  Even over the last five, six years, a decade, to be operational for 50 years, the art of
• 9:06
  technical production 50 years ago will have changed significantly to today.
• 9:12
  How involved are ProTech as an ongoing relationship and conversation with the venue about upgrades,
• 9:19
  about changes to things, simple things that we take for granted now, about just Wi-Fi
• 9:23
  and internet connectivity that events really demand now?
• 9:26
  Yeah, very involved.
• 9:28
  I think one of the key roles of being a partner in that way, an on-site supplier, is that
• 9:34
  you are part of the team with the hotel.
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  We're a resource for them to tap into.
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  Whenever they have any kind of questions or they're thinking about buying some new infrastructure
• 9:43
  for the hotel, new screens, or like you say, upgrading the Wi-Fi, then yes, we're very
• 9:47
  much part of that conversation.
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  We meet the potential suppliers, walk around the rooms, make our suggestions, tell them
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  what's needed.
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  We'll test the solutions, look into what they're just working on inside the hotel to make sure
• 9:59
  they're getting the right products and that things are moving forward in the right way
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  for the clients' events going forward.
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  Interestingly, you mentioned something there as simple as TVs nowadays.
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  We take for granted sometimes when we walk into spaces and hotels that there's TVs in
• 10:14
  the wall.
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  They almost become part of the interior design process now because there's so much you can
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  do with them, isn't there?
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  From a branding, from a communications point of view, but that's something that I've fallen
• 10:26
  foul of doing technical production on site, is that not all TVs are made equally.
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  That's where your experience can come into it in terms of recommending even from brand
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  to brand.
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  Some of them are easier to put branding on via USB sticks.
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  Some are easier to network with network cables.
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  Exactly.
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  So yes, smart TVs now you can just send your content straight to them, plug in a USB, nice
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  and easy.
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  Older models, maybe not.
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  You're still getting into the situation where you need to run a laptop into it from a HDMI
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  cable, God forbid VGA.
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  We still see them.
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  You do walk into some hotels now and they still have the old patch panel on the wall
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  with a couple of RCAs and a VGA connector and say, oh no, it's worked for years.
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  It's worked for years.
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  Why would it not work for you?
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  Well, yeah, I don't have a laptop from 1998 running Windows 95.
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  Indeed.
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  Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right.
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  Ultimately, the technology is something, I think as you say, people just take for granted.
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  It's part of the furniture you walk past.
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  It's our job to make sure that is integrating seamlessly and smoothly with what the hotel
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  are offering and what the clients are trying to do, whether that be something that's built
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  into the hotel or more often than not, as many of the rooms are a blank canvas, things
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  we're bringing in on a bespoke basis at the time.
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  That's the challenge.
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  Every event is different.
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  So there isn't really kind of a cookie cutter approach, as you well know yourself.
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  Things can be similar, but they're always slightly different.
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  No two events are exactly the same.
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  It's kind of talking to the client, getting that opportunity to meet with them and be
• 12:00
  part of the conversation early in the process, which the hotel are great at doing and allows
• 12:05
  us to have that interface with the client, which means we can then add value by making
• 12:10
  suggestions, thinking about possible solutions.
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  By the time the event comes around, we're in great shape and the client has got the
• 12:17
  best possible solution for their budget.
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  That said, in terms of the bespoke aspect, they're never quite the same.
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  I would guess that because of the relationship with the hotel, that inevitably, anybody who's
• 12:31
  built an event will know that the first time you work in a space is always a challenge
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  because you're learning.
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  You're learning its idiosyncrasies.
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  But when you've worked in that space on multiple occasions, that build, that out gets easier
• 12:45
  and smoother every time.
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  We're like a finely oiled machine.
• 12:51
  I guess that some of the spaces in the venue, there is almost like a baseline of what you
• 12:59
  may put in there.
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  If somebody says, look, we're using this space as a conference, you'll go, right, so we need
• 13:03
  this particular setup.
• 13:05
  Yes, yes and no, I think.
• 13:07
  You're absolutely right.
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  We know what works and you do tend to do, okay, we get that end with the set and two
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  screens works best there.
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  Of course, the ceiling height is a bit different there.
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  We can't do that.
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  You know those parameters, so you know what can and can't be done and you know what usually
• 13:21
  works.
• 13:22
  But I think it's sometimes good to break the mold.
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  We have done events recently where we've configured the rooms in ways we've never done before,
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  which after I've been here since 2009, you'd think that's surprising, but all it can take
• 13:37
  sometimes is a client pushing for something different and going, no, actually, I want
• 13:40
  it to be like this.
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  Then you have to kind of step back and you think about it and because you've got the
• 13:44
  knowledge of the room and how, what can work now, you can come up with a solution.
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  So what I don't ever want to do is just kind of push a client into, you know, it's A, B
• 13:53
  or C. You have that because that's what works and it's a one size fits all.
• 13:57
  You can say this normally works in here and this is what we've done in the past and this
• 14:00
  fits really well and this will suit your needs, but you know, if you want something else.
• 14:06
  It's a good point because you never want to be caught in that trap of being that company
• 14:09
  that says, well, this is how we do it.
• 14:11
  Exactly.
• 14:12
  I don't want to be prescriptive.
• 14:14
  You never want to be prescriptive or, you know, computer says no.
• 14:17
  Give the benefit of experience and as you say, absolutely, you do know what works and
• 14:21
  certain orientations are going to be better than others and we will always give the client
• 14:24
  the benefit of that and show them previous events and draw plans for them as part of
• 14:28
  the service and we will always draw CAD plans and size everything out.
• 14:31
  It's a great tool.
• 14:32
  The guys are great at it, but it's always nice to be challenged.
• 14:35
  I get quite excited if a client goes, no, I don't want that.
• 14:38
  What we'd like is, you know, the presenter to be able to be right in the middle of the
• 14:41
  audience, maybe move from that end to that end and, you know, we want the band to be
• 14:45
  over there.
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  Not over there.
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  Okay.
• 14:48
  Right.
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  How are we going to make that work?
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  And then that gets the credit.
• 14:51
  That's when the creative juices start flowing.
• 14:52
  And absolutely.
• 14:53
  And one thing that I'm always conscious of is, is we live in a great world now where
• 15:00
  from a production point of view, because you can go on something like YouTube and see what
• 15:04
  they're doing at Coachella last week from a production point of view and see what was
• 15:08
  happening on the main stage there.
• 15:09
  And more so than ever, event organizers at any level are afforded the luxury in some
• 15:16
  respects of being able to take influence from huge events and actually try and replicate
• 15:20
  them to an extent in smaller events.
• 15:23
  Because of the technology that's available now, because of, you know, the ability to
• 15:27
  suspend sound and light or put up an LED screen that 15 years ago they couldn't have contemplated
• 15:33
  because of the power consumption and the cost of it.
• 15:36
  We're in a really sort of creative space now, aren't we?
• 15:38
  Where people can really look at a space and go, can we do this?
• 15:41
  Absolutely.
• 15:42
  Yeah.
• 15:43
  It's definitely true.
• 15:44
  I mean, yeah.
• 15:45
  Like the advent of LED wall has been the affordability coming into the standard event arena.
• 15:51
  Yeah.
• 15:52
  Things that you looked at on the Brits awards or whatever, or the Oscars like five years
• 15:55
  ago and think, oh, I only dream of that.
• 15:57
  It's only on TV.
• 15:58
  Yeah.
• 15:59
  A lot of events we're doing now are LED wall, which again gives you, because you don't need
• 16:03
  projection distance.
• 16:04
  Yeah.
• 16:05
  You can break it up.
• 16:06
  You can have different shapes.
• 16:07
  Of course.
• 16:08
  Yeah.
• 16:09
  Have different environments.
• 16:10
  So people might not want to, you know, a big presentation heavy event.
• 16:13
  They might want something a bit more like what we're doing right now.
• 16:15
  People sitting and having a chat and the audience getting involved, something that's a bit more
• 16:19
  fireside chat, that kind of thing.
• 16:22
  Yeah.
• 16:23
  You can support that quite easily with different staging blocks of LED, however you want it
• 16:28
  to be.
• 16:29
  It is.
• 16:30
  And the, I've said this regularly, both on the podcast and in at events is that what
• 16:35
  we're doing right now, if there was an audience sat in front of us, that would be a fireside
• 16:39
  chat or a seminar session at a conference.
• 16:42
  The fact that there's no audience here, you know, and we're putting out afterwards, oh,
• 16:46
  it becomes a podcast or a webinar.
• 16:49
  That's a word that's not really used anymore.
• 16:51
  Is it?
• 16:52
  You remember that?
• 16:53
  Pre-COVID, were we going to do a webinar?
• 16:55
  You know, now it's just, well, let's record some content and put it out digitally.
• 17:00
  But those areas of grade in terms of.
• 17:03
  It's all, it's all meshed and intertwined, hasn't it?
• 17:05
  I remember through the pandemic as well, everything obviously was virtual.
• 17:08
  So there was the whole virtual conferencing became huge and everyone was like, well, we're
• 17:11
  never going to get back to live events.
• 17:12
  This is it now.
• 17:13
  Everyone's just going to do virtual conferences.
• 17:15
  Why would they do live events?
• 17:16
  Well, they do live events because people like to get together, much as it's really useful
• 17:20
  to be able to talk to somebody over a Teams call or a Zoom call or whatever it might be.
• 17:25
  And there probably isn't any need anymore to drive from Manchester to London, sit in
• 17:29
  a boardroom and have a two hour meeting about planning an event.
• 17:32
  You can do that over Teams.
• 17:33
  And that's great.
• 17:34
  That's saving everybody time.
• 17:35
  That's making everybody more efficient.
• 17:37
  When it comes to the actual event, people still want to engage and talk face to face
• 17:42
  with human beings.
• 17:43
  Yeah.
• 17:44
  Well, I said this is, you know, during that period as well, that you cannot replicate
• 17:50
  that feeling of the lights going down in a room and that five or six seconds before that
• 17:56
  intro music kicks in and that suddenly the screen explodes on stage with an intro video.
• 18:02
  And the first track sort of kicks in and you feel the bass in your chest.
• 18:08
  You can't replicate that through a digital medium.
• 18:11
  You know, you have to be in that room to experience those things.
• 18:14
  It's sensory.
• 18:15
  It is.
• 18:16
  And people love it.
• 18:17
  I mean, you know, that's why I'm in events.
• 18:18
  I love that kind of thing.
• 18:19
  Theatre, music, gigs.
• 18:20
  That's what it's all about.
• 18:23
  So I think that's true for a lot of people who work in the events industry and in production
• 18:26
  in particular.
• 18:27
  So, yes.
• 18:28
  And all these elements tie in.
• 18:30
  So the stuff that happened during the pandemic, the virtual stuff didn't go away.
• 18:33
  We still do it for smaller meetings and you integrate that into your live events as well.
• 18:37
  So you can get your speaker from Hong Kong to bring him into the event and do a perfectly
• 18:43
  fine presentation and have a Q&A in the room without having to fly over.
• 18:46
  Or if they want to fly over, they can fly over.
• 18:48
  But you've got options.
• 18:50
  We've got flexibility.
• 18:52
  We've got integration.
• 18:53
  So I think the events industry has never been in a stronger place.
• 18:57
  We've got so many tools.
• 18:58
  But it's all come together in a really powerful way.
• 19:01
  And it goes back to what we were saying, I suppose, at the early part of today's conversation
• 19:05
  about that scalability of different events is that, you know, time was when if you wanted
• 19:11
  to dial somebody in remotely on a screen, that would be only for the events with the
• 19:16
  biggest budget in the biggest room with the huge screens.
• 19:19
  And now you could probably do a conference here for 50 people, for 50 senior execs, and
• 19:24
  with a simple, you know, projector screen and a simple AV setup, you bring a laptop
• 19:29
  in, patch it in, put the guy on Zoom or Teams or whatever.
• 19:32
  It's actually relatively...
• 19:33
  Well, it is.
• 19:34
  It's pretty easy to do, isn't it?
• 19:35
  Do it with a laptop and a small camera.
• 19:36
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:37
  Yeah.
• 19:38
  And, you know, wind that back 10, 15 years, you'd have to get, like, a satellite truck
• 19:41
  to do a satellite link to Hong Kong over here.
• 19:44
  It would be insane.
• 19:45
  Yes.
• 19:46
  So the way things have moved and the advent of technology has been fantastic.
• 19:49
  And it hasn't actually been to the detriment of live events at all.
• 19:52
  It's just given live events more tools.
• 19:54
  It's just given us more integration.
• 19:55
  It's given us more options.
• 19:56
  It's enhanced them completely, hasn't it?
• 19:59
  It's given more, I suppose, if you like...
• 20:02
  I love a ridiculous analogy on the podcast, regular viewers, but, you know, like, you've
• 20:07
  got your main menu and all it's done is increased the side orders.
• 20:10
  Yes.
• 20:11
  Do you know what I mean?
• 20:12
  That's right.
• 20:13
  Yeah, more sides.
• 20:14
  Well, you've got your conference, you've got your main, you know, keynote speaker, you've
• 20:16
  got your trade show, but would you like any of these extra sides, you know?
• 20:21
  We've got all these other amazing options now that we can deploy.
• 20:24
  That's right.
• 20:25
  The things we always used to have are still there.
• 20:26
  You still have chips.
• 20:27
  There's always chips.
• 20:28
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:29
  We still have stage decks and PA.
• 20:31
  And I suppose it's very apt.
• 20:32
  We're sat in this beautiful... is it Brightsmith?
• 20:34
  Brightsmith.
• 20:35
  Brightsmith on the water, yes.
• 20:36
  We're in the Brightsmith sort of bar and restaurant.
• 20:39
  And we have got a bit of B-roll footage that we're going to take today to sort of give
• 20:42
  you a bit of context as to where we are sort of located.
• 20:45
  We've got, you know, the lake at the NEC behind us that we can see just out the window.
• 20:50
  And it really is...
• 20:51
  I wouldn't say opulent, but it's got a certain kind of almost sort of Gatsby vibe to it here.
• 20:59
  I suppose I'd say so, yes.
• 21:00
  There is definitely kind of, yeah, sort of an art deco-ish kind of, yeah, old-fashioned
• 21:04
  opulence.
• 21:05
  I can imagine a jazz quartet with a double bass in the corner.
• 21:08
  But twinned in with kind of some modern cool as well.
• 21:11
  Yeah.
• 21:12
  And yet, on a sunny day like this, looking out over the lake and the trees with the veranda
• 21:16
  there with the furniture on, it's, you know, could almost be on holiday, James.
• 21:20
  Almost.
• 21:21
  Before we sort of start thinking about wrapping up today, I'm keen to sort of dive into the
• 21:28
  excitement side of things.
• 21:30
  You know, working somewhere like this, some people may be thinking, oh, well, could it
• 21:35
  get quite sort of a bit sort of same, same, same venue every week, same place every week.
• 21:42
  Just how different is it week to week and with the different level of events coming
• 21:45
  in?
• 21:46
  How much does that contribute to still staying enthused about working in the industry?
• 21:50
  There is a great amount of variety.
• 21:51
  Just by the fact the venue can cater for events for 30 people or events for 1,500 people,
• 21:59
  you've got a huge scope.
• 22:00
  So you can do exhibitions, award dinners, conferences, small meetings, product launches,
• 22:05
  roadshows, all sorts of things and all sorts of different clients from different industries
• 22:09
  wanting to promote themselves or do whatever there is they're doing in different ways.
• 22:14
  I think add to that as well, it's, the team here is a huge part of it as well.
• 22:20
  One of the things that I think the good old Birmingham Met does really, really well is
• 22:25
  that the people here are the heart of this hotel and a lot of these people have been
• 22:30
  here for a long time.
• 22:33
  Everyone who comes in is of a very similar mindset.
• 22:36
  It really is like a big family and the people here go above and beyond for the clients and
• 22:41
  as being part of that and feeling part of that, that's really valuable as well.
• 22:45
  You want to come into work and you want to do your best because, you know, I love these
• 22:49
  people and I love this place so that's what it's about.
• 22:52
  What sort of just popped into my head there is there are hotels with event spaces and
• 22:58
  then there are event spaces with hotels and I would see this as an event space with a
• 23:05
  hotel.
• 23:06
  It's magnificent.
• 23:07
  The hotel's lovely.
• 23:08
  But this is, you know, don't be confused again, don't be misled, you know, anybody who thinks
• 23:13
  oh well it's a hotel with event space, I want to be looking at that, this is, this is as
• 23:17
  good and as flexible as, you know, any what you would call dedicated event space, you
• 23:24
  know, I'm not going to name names but can you get what I'm saying there?
• 23:27
  I absolutely get what you're saying.
• 23:28
  Events is the heart of this place, this is what drives it, it's an event hotel, it's
• 23:31
  an event venue.
• 23:32
  We've got the big spaces, we've talked about the events that happen here, the hotel's fabulous
• 23:37
  and the hotel's a big part of it but it just means you've got your catering and your level
• 23:42
  of service and your bedrooms and everything on site so what you've got here is everything
• 23:46
  all in one place.
• 23:48
  So you've got your venue space, you've got your bedrooms, you've got your food, you've
• 23:52
  got your audiovisual and production, we've got other fantastic partners who can do theming
• 23:56
  and dressing and entertainment, bands, all that kind of thing.
• 23:59
  You name it, it's all here and it's all under one roof.
• 24:02
  Do you ever do anything outdoors or is it exclusively indoors here?
• 24:04
  We have done outside stuff, the car park up front often gets commandeered to be various
• 24:10
  things so you've got food stalls out there, circus tents, trucks for the side comes down
• 24:15
  and there's exhibitions inside it so yes, there is that space that can be used.
• 24:22
  I'm thinking, but you know, because I'm looking at this amazing sort of new green space that
• 24:29
  my attention was drawn to this morning, there are new glamping pods here at the hotel which
• 24:35
  are just across the lake, a short walk from the main building of the hotel and they are
• 24:40
  absolutely stunning, they've got balconies or verandas that go onto the lake and I'm
• 24:44
  just wondering, is that going to be used as a space, can you see yourself putting production
• 24:48
  over there?
• 24:49
  Potentially, yeah, nothing is off the table James, I'd love to give it a go and I think
• 24:53
  what that does, the whole NEC site is all part of the same organism so the Hilton Birmingham
• 24:59
  Metropole is a big part of the NEC here and they all feed into each other so the NEC round
• 25:05
  the lake here is really nice now, like I say, you're looking out there with the sunshine
• 25:09
  and the glamping pods and the little decking they've run, it is a little bit like being
• 25:13
  on holiday, you could be in a glamorous resort rather than just outside of Birmingham.
• 25:18
  In the middle of the NEC, that's right, who'd have thunk?
• 25:21
  Well exactly, because again, a lot of people picture, oh well it's very sort of business,
• 25:26
  it's you know, concrete dare I say, it's all very sort of manufactured and people forget
• 25:32
  sort of what space, there are a lot of green spaces integrated into the NEC sort of footprint.
• 25:38
  It's lovely in the summer for a lunch break, a lot of the people here will take a walk
• 25:43
  round the lake and you know, go sit out on a bench and have a sandwich and get a bit
• 25:46
  of sunshine and fresh air, it's lovely, it's a really nice thing to be able to do, it's
• 25:49
  a nice environment for people holding their events coming here to be in, walk across the
• 25:53
  resorts world you know, there are bars and casinos and escape rooms and bowling and all
• 26:00
  sorts of stuff over there, cinema, so there's plenty of activities, there's the Bear Grylls
• 26:04
  over the far side of the NEC, Bear Grylls Experience, jump yourself out of a helicopter
• 26:10
  or go in a shark tank, that kind of thing, you got it?
• 26:13
  Very much so, yeah very much so.
• 26:15
  Who wouldn't?
• 26:16
  Again, this is a random question before we wrap up today Simon, but we are just under
• 26:22
  sort of 50 days from the World Cup and Simon and I were talking just off air before we
• 26:26
  started about our various football teams, Simon's in a fortunate position that his team
• 26:31
  Coventry have just gone back up to the Premier League, congratulations to them, but one thing
• 26:37
  that a lot of event organisers fall foul of is not checking major football fixtures, I've
• 26:41
  had it two or three times with awards dinners where they've realised one week before the
• 26:46
  event that England are playing right in the middle of their awards, I remember having
• 26:49
  to stop an awards ceremony once because England had gone to penalties against Columbia and
• 26:55
  nobody was watching the awards anymore, you could all see them with the phones glowing
• 27:00
  up at their faces and so we just decided to stop it, it's a random one, have you already
• 27:06
  spoken to people about having to integrate any elements of the World Cup into events
• 27:10
  this year?
• 27:12
  Yes we have, we've already had people saying that during our events there is going to be
• 27:16
  England playing so can you put some TVs in the room for people to watch the football?
• 27:21
  And of course they're late fixtures this year, I think England are playing at 9, 10 o'clock
• 27:26
  and obviously we've got Scotland there as well, let's not forget that Scotland have
• 27:30
  made it there and it might seem a random thing to ask but you know from a production point
• 27:34
  of view these are important questions because if you don't address them and know about them
• 27:38
  in advance and look to integrate something in there you will inevitably lose some of
• 27:42
  your attendees.
• 27:43
  Yes and make it part of your event if that's what I would say so what we're looking at
• 27:46
  doing is putting the TVs into the kind of chill out area of the event so if people want
• 27:51
  to dance and do the band and stuff they can do that and if people want to go and get a
• 27:53
  drink and watch the football they can do that too.
• 27:57
  Absolutely well, that will pan out I'm sure, there will inevitably be people falling foul
• 28:04
  on these and maybe, maybe if you've been watching or listening to this today you've
• 28:08
  maybe gone oh, oh, maybe I just need to check when the fixtures are, could it affect me
• 28:15
  and you know if you haven't looked at them, look at them, that's my advice from today.
• 28:21
  We are in the beautiful surroundings of the Hilton Birmingham Metropole today recording
• 28:26
  an event industry news podcast as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for this
• 28:30
  amazing venue right in the heart of England adjacent to the NEC of course and I've been
• 28:35
  joined on the podcast today by Simon Jelly the National Sales and Account Manager for
• 28:39
  ProTech who are preferred AV and technical production suppliers here at the hotel and
• 28:44
  have worked alongside them for many, many years.
• 28:46
  Simon it's been a pleasure talking to you today, thanks for joining the podcast.
• 28:49
  Thank you James.